


I Know We'll Meet Again

by MeadowWard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon is a distant memory, F/M, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, Sharing a Bed, Time Travel, World War II, if tropes were a buffet I'm going back for seconds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18821935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeadowWard/pseuds/MeadowWard
Summary: "The date, Ward.” Jemma pointed to the upper right hand corner of the newspaper. “Look at the date.” He did, and what he saw made him blink twice. It wasn’t possible.“Grant,” she said gravely, confirming what he saw was true, “we’re in 1941.”September 30th, 1941 to be exact.





	I Know We'll Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been saving this one for a while. I started writing this well before Endgame, so this story will not play by any rules laid out in the MCU canon (then again, when have my stories ever played by the rules of canon). I think there will be two, maybe three parts to this fic. The title comes from “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn, a popular (if not the *most* popular) song from World War II.

There were three things Grant could count on as certainties: the sun would always rise. That was one. He would always be at least a little tired, and so far in thirty-plus years of living, that had remained an immutable truth. Thirdly, nothing would ever, ever go according to plan, especially where missions were concerned. “Routine missions” without complications in SHIELD were the stuff of urban legends, and that knowledge alone should have given Grant pause when Coulson announced the team would be undertaking the seizure of illegally obtained alien artifacts, summing up his mission overview with, “It’s all pretty routine”. 

Routine. Simple. Naturally, it was anything but. 

The site of their mission was an unassuming, large manor in the countryside of upstate New York. Some quirky hermit millionaire was holed up with over a dozen pieces of alien technology bought off the black market. “Basically a whole house of 0-8-4s” was what Fitz called it as he packed the SUV with anything they might need. Coulson had knocked once on the front door and announced he had a warrant for both the gentleman’s arrest and for the seizure of alien technology, but the tricky thing about warrants is all it does is legally protect the people doing the confiscating. Nothing to be done if the person under arrest decides they want to hide the items, or worse; fight back. Fortunately for them, the owner of the artifacts was just your token, bored rich guy, not a fighter. _Unfortunately,_ his lack of skill made him extra reckless, and they’d only been on the property for two minutes before he started activating some of the foreign weaponry in his stash. One good blast took out the front door and windows on both levels of the sizable house, knocking them all on their backs. While Coulson called for back-up, May shot Grant a look; first at him, then at the other three members of their team who were hardly combat ready with earth-grade weapons, let alone alien ones. Skye and Fitz were okay, but Jemma -being the shortest and the slightest- was blown from the porch onto the ground. The fall had knocked her unconscious. Being that Grant was closest to her, having brought up the rear while Coulson and May led the way, he bent over her first, brushing locks of light brown hair away from her face and finding the pulse point on her neck. Alive, but unconscious, and who knew for how long? 

A complication, for sure; one of several. They’d been onsite for all of three minutes and already the plan was a total bust.

“Get her out of here,” Coulson ordered Grant sternly before drawing his gun. “Fitz and Skye, with me. May, round the back. Let’s try to get him cornered before he makes anything else go boom, okay?”

The old plan abandoned and their new orders in mind, the team took off to their various positions. Grant scooped up Jemma as gently as he could while still being quick and took off at a run, glancing back every few steps to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The collector -his profile portrayed him as a crotchety, money-in-the-mattress type, with a penchant for conspiracy theories- didn’t seem to have security guards on hand for a chase, but he’d rather play safe than sorry. There were a only handful of places he could take Jemma for safekeeping. The Bus, which seemed the obvious choice, but it was parked in a clearing over five miles away. He would either have to take the team’s only SUV to make the trip or run the whole way with her in his arms. He was strong, but he wasn’t that strong. The countryside was dotted with other homes and the occasional farmstead. He recalled seeing a somewhat dilapidated barn about half a mile east of their mission and decided that was an ideal hideout for him and Jemma. He could get her to safety, but still be close enough to assist the other members of his team if things got hairy. 

At least, that was his plan.

He hadn’t counted on Jemma not waking up for hours, remaining unconscious long enough that Grant began to get really worried. He hadn’t anticipated the comms being down, making it impossible for him to contact the team to let them know their location. Given that she was apparently very, very hurt, Grant was wary of leaving her unattended to walk back to the house to find the rest of the team. Neither did he want to pick up Jemma again and carry her back, risking aggravating her injuries. So, they were stuck. They hid out in the broken-down barn for hours, until night fell and sunlight could no longer be seen between the slats of weathered, broken wood walls. 

Jemma finally awoke as dawn approached, grumbling beneath her breath and putting one hand to the back of her head. 

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus,” she grumbled, her eyes still wrenched closed. 

“Just a little alien explosion.” Grant answered, going to her side to support her as she tried to sit up. She wavered a little, finding her balance before she opened her eyes.

“‘Just’. Funny, Ward.” She winced when she forced her lids opened. Even the dim light hurt and took adjustment. “How long have I been out?”

“Hours.” He replied, then looked at his watch. The time was frozen at 4:12pm. “The blast must have killed my watch. Comms are down, too.”

“Fitz and the others?” 

“No sign of them.” Neither wanted to wonder aloud what that might mean.

Grant suggested she wait in the barn until he returned, hopefully with the SUV and the rest of their team; otherwise, with whatever vehicle he could find. Jemma hated the plan and told him so. She didn’t want to be left behind with no way to protect herself, and wanted even less to let him wander about with only the one ICER on his hip. It took some convincing, but eventually she persuaded him that she could make the trek to safety, however far away that was.

“If it gets to be too much, you tell me.” he ordered as he helped her to her feet, keeping one hand on her elbow as she found her balance. She saluted sarcastically in response.

He pushed open the barn doors, flooding their haven with the gray, pale light of the very early morning. Both of them blinked in the change of lighting, and Grant was sure his eyes were playing tricks on him as they adjusted. The barn, old and broken-down the night before, nearly looked new in the dawn. 

He withdrew a small pocket knife from his back pocket. “What’s that for?” Jemma asked as he pulled out the short blade. 

“Marking our path so we don’t repeat ourselves.” he answered. There were more trees in their way than he remembered there being the day before, so he had to mark frequently every few hundred feet. It was a painstaking process; the blade was small and blunt, hardly good for slicing bread and nearly useless against the hardy bark of the trees. Eventually, they cleared the trees, coming upon a dirt road. Strange; he could’ve sworn they were heading west toward the manor. 

“We didn’t use a dirt road yesterday.” Jemma said to him.

“No. We didn’t.” He replied. “Maybe this is a different one,” he offered as explanation, but sounded about as unconvinced as he felt. He tried to call to mind where May had said the hermit’s house was located. All he remembered was New York. Perhaps upstate New York still had some really undeveloped parts, in the Catskills and such. Yeah, he would go with that. 

They decided to walk along the side of the road until they came upon the house, or better yet, their team. The walk was silent except for the sound of their footsteps falling on the worn earth and the occasional roar of a car engine. It was only when the third long-retired classic automobile passed them that Jemma noted something seemed strange. 

“There goes another vintage car.” she said to him. “The trees seem shorter, too. And maybe I’m crazy, but I swear the air feels crisp.” 

“Could be that you have a concussion.” Grant said.

He could _feel_ her roll her eyes at that comment. “Thank you, Doctor Ward, but that wouldn’t do this. When we landed, it was nearly summer. This almost feels like fall. Look at the leaves.” Sure enough, the leaves were not so vibrant a green as they’d been the day before. Some of them were starting to turn yellow. 

“Wait a minute.” Something she’d said gave him pause. “What do you mean by ‘when we landed’?” 

The telltale rumble of an approaching car made her ears perk up. “I’m not sure yet.” She faced the road and waved her arms, flagging the vehicle down. Grant half-expected the car -an antique pickup truck in shockingly good condition- to just blow past them, but it rolled to a stop and a pleasant-looking gentleman opened the passenger-side door to speak with them.

“Can I help you folks?” he asked with a smile.

Grant expected Jemma to speak. After all, _she_ was the one who flagged the truck down. But she remained mute at his side, so Grant had no choice but to take the lead. 

“Yes, my…” he glanced at Jemma -they didn’t look related, not even distantly, so claiming her as a sister or a cousin was out- then went with, “wife and I seem to be a bit lost.

He eyed them curiously, but not with suspicion. “Not from around here, are you?”

Grant shook his head. “She’s British and I’m… Canadian.” It was the best explanation he could think of on the fly. “We’re trying to get to New York City.” He figured heading to a known hub for SHIELD was their best shot at linking up with the rest of their team. 

The man blew out a low whistle from between puffed cheeks. “Quite a drive for me. I can take you as far as Middletown. Someone there may be able to help you get you the rest of the way.”

Neither of them knew where that was in relation to their current location, but they just nodded and gratefully took his offer. Jemma took the passenger seat while Grant climbed into the truck bed beside three large crates of farm fresh tomatoes. It ended up being over a three-hour drive from their mission site to Middletown, NY.

“Walter,” Jemma asked the driver before she shut the door. “Just for our reference. Where, exactly, did you pick us up?”

He laughed. Not meanly, but a laugh all the same. “You kids were really lost, weren’t you?” When his chuckles died down, he answered. “Oneonta. Near the Miller farmstead, I think.” 

Once they were alone, Grant took note of how pale Jemma looked. Her arms were folded over her chest, her posture slumped, her head held at a low angle. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?”

She shook her head. “Grant. I’m afraid we are very far from home.” 

Well, that was sort of relative, wasn’t it? Their “home”, for all intents and purposes, was a mobile base. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

She didn’t say at first, taking a pointed look around at the place their ride had dropped them off. It was a small town, not too busy, but enough people milled about that Grant got a better sense of their surroundings. All the women wore clean, nice dresses, the sort that seemed to come straight out of Pleasantville. What men he saw were dressed in nice slacks and tucked in shirts, but for a few younger boys who wore shorts with high socks. No one was bent over their phones or laptops or iPads. What din of conversation he could make out was pleasant and polite, although more than a few were shooting surreptitious stares their way. 

“It’s like we walked into the fifties.” he said as a joke.

Jemma did not laugh; she didn’t even crack a smile. “Close.” From her pocket, she produced a piece of paper: half of a torn page from a newspaper. “I got this from the farmer. I told him the article interested me, being British.” The headline read “Britain Seizes Initiative In The Air; Cuts Losses At Sea”. 

“Weird.”

“Yes.” 

“They’re talking about Churchill.” 

Her brow furrowed. “No… the date, Ward.” She pointed to the upper right hand corner of the page. “Look at the date.” He did, and what he saw made him blink twice. It wasn’t possible.

“Grant,” she said gravely, confirming what he saw was true, “we’re in 1941.”

* * *

 

September 30th, 1941 to be exact. 

It explained why no one had their phones or laptops out, why the road had been dirt. It answered why Walter had had no qualms picking up a pair of strangers, why his truck had seemed old but ran like new, and why they were now standing in the center of town, sticking out like a pair of sore thumbs in their strange clothes. 

“How did this happen?” he asked. 

“I don’t know.” Jemma answered. She really didn’t. “Time travel isn’t technology any recognized nation currently possesses. As far as we know.”

“‘As far as we know’? As far as we know??” 

“Shhh! Keep your voice down!” She ordered through gritted teeth. “We can’t afford to draw even more attention to ourselves.” She glanced to the left, then to the right. People were staring, but were smartly trying to be sneaky about it, casting looks their way from behind newspapers or through traveling gazes disguised to look innocent. “I don’t exactly have equipment with me to figure out how this happened. Not even a bloody magnifying glass.” She snorted derisively. “I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

“My orders were to get you to safety; not your equipment.”

“Yes, well, job well done then I guess.”

He rolled his eyes. “Can you get back to the issue at hand?”

“Fine. My best guess is a wormhole. Or a thinning in the fabric of time. Something like that.”

Grant’s brows knit together. “Did you just… ‘the fabric of time’?” He scoffed. “That was from that awful chick flick you and Skye made us watch the other night.”

Her mouth dropped open. “First of all, it’s a fairly prevalent time theory. Second of all, _excuse_ you? ‘Kate and Leopold’ is a _wonderful_ movie about timeless love and chivalry and what it means to be a true gentleman.”

“Really? Because all you seemed to care about when we watched it was Hugh Jackman.” When she protested, he asked, “What was that name you and Skye were calling him again? It had something to do with his physique.” He put a finger over his lips, pretending to think. 

She felt her cheeks go red. If she’d known her fangirling would be turned against her, she would’ve been more guarded in her squeals over the handsome ( _so, so handsome)_ film lead. Her answer came out mumbled. 

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Huge Jacked-man, all right? We called him Huge Jacked-man. And in our defense -not that I think it needs defending, but still- we are hardly the first to say so.”

“Yes, but you _kept saying so.”_

She cut him off with a wave. “Can we get back to the issue at hand?” She was only too happy to fling his request back in his face word for word, disappointed that he’d succeeded in getting her ruffled. If she was right and they’d time traveled, all they had was each other. The last thing she wanted was to fight with him. 

Even if he annoyed her and sort of deserved it. 

“What do we do now?” he asked.

She wasn’t completely sure there was anything _to_ do. “We have no way of reaching anyone. SHIELD won’t be founded until after the war.”

“But… that’s years from now.”

Jemma took a deep breath in. “I know,” traveled out on her exhale. She wasn’t defeated so much as resigned. They’d fought through their fair share of battles as a team, but time? Time wasn’t exactly an entity to overcome. It was an unseen force. It couldn’t be bargained with, couldn’t be manipulated. For all her intelligence, she was hard pressed to see how she could get them out of this one (though she owed it to the both of them to try). Perhaps she could find a way back for them, but even without calculating the odds, their chances seemed slim to none. 

Her glimmer of hope was that they’d made it back in time in the first place. That tipped the scales a little, she thought. The impossible had already occurred when they were transported. Perhaps she could engineer a second occurrence, but it would take time and study. Emphasis on time, which was as ironic as it was cruel. 

It was a good thing Grant understood Jemma’s nature. She wouldn’t concede defeat easily, wouldn’t accept her lot outright unless she felt she had no other choice. He saw the moment where she resolved to make the best of being stranded. She would take this hand the universe had dealt them without argument, and it made him feel very somber. He nearly regretted the time he’d spent teasing her. 

But only nearly; the way she blushed had been pretty cute, and therefore worth it. 

* * *

 

  Once they had a handle on where they were ( _when_ they were?) it was easier to consider their options. Not that they had many to choose from; it took just a couple minutes of consideration before coming to a consensus on what they felt was best. 

Firstly, they needed new clothes. Jemma refused to steal; a shame, that, since the weather was still nice enough that people were line drying their clothing outside, making pilfering easy. Grant tried to convince her that sometimes necessity outweighed ones qualms, but she wouldn’t budge. That left them no choice but to barter for clothing. 

Unfortunately, they didn’t have much with which to barter. Anything containing even a little bit of anachronistic technology was discounted. That ruled out roughly everything on Grant’s person and most of Jemma’s. 

“Did Fitz work on this at any point?” she asked, inspecting his watch. It was the nicest thing he owned, titanium links with ceramic inlay, and mother of pearl details on the face. Grant had offered it up for trade when every other item of his was refused for various, valid reasons.

“The battery died once and he offered to replace it.” When she shot him a look, realization crossed over his face. “Do you think he…”

“Of course he did. This is Fitz we’re talking about.” She put the watch up to her ear. The clock was dead, but she could hear the telltale whirring of microchips at work within. “At the very least, he would’ve installed a GPS tracker for emergencies. Probably a crude comms system as well.” She handed the timepiece back to him and shook her head. “We can’t trade it.”

“You really think someone will break open a watch?”

She glanced at the clock’s face one more time. “I think someone will break open a _broken_ watch to try and fix it and find things they can’t explain.”

He pocketed the watch. “Well, I’m out of ideas. And material objects.”

She sighed, a truly disappointed sound, and removed the dainty white gold and sapphire ring from her right hand. It was the only piece of jewelry she ever wore, so he guessed it meant a lot to her. He’d seen it (or rather, seen the outline of it through her gloves) whenever she tended to his post-mission injuries. She’d been saving the ring for last, hoping that between the two of them they could come up with something of value. “It was my grandmother’s. Should fetch a price.” She held it between her fingers, looking at the stone and the band, committing the details to memory. Her chin trembled a little as she took Grant’s hand and placed it in his open palm, her hazel eyes welling with tears. 

Somewhat awkwardly, he patted her shoulder. “Thank you. I know this will help us.” 

It helped a lot, in fact. Ring in hand, Grant went to the general store and managed to trade it for several sets of clothes (including time period appropriate underwear, which Jemma quickly hid from sight), two pairs of shoes for each of them, and a suitcase in which to carry it all. Toiletries were limited to a bar of soap, two toothbrushes, and a small tube of Colgate to share. His picks for food were rather slim, as not much would travel or keep well without refrigeration, so he accepted a brown bag filled with a dozen or so shiny green apples and snuck a bag of toffee into it. The toffee was for Jemma. He’d also managed to convince the shop’s owner to give him and Jemma a ride to New York City. There wouldn’t be any SHIELD contacts for them, which had been their initial goal in getting to NYC, but they both agreed they would do better with the resources a city provided, rather than a small town.

“Oh, and one more thing.” he said after they had snuck behind the store and changed into their new clothes. He handed her a plain, thin, yellow gold band. 

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“For our cover.” he replied simply, then took her hand and slid the band onto her left ring finger. “There are certain things that will be easier for us if we pretend we’re married, like getting rides or places to stay. Don’t know about England, but 1940s America was still pretty Puritanical.”

She nodded her understanding. “I’m shocked you got all this from the general store.”

It wasn’t quite like he bought the ring outright. The wife of the store’s owner had been present when he came in to barter and must have sensed his desperation. She was, even more so than her husband, sympathetic to their plight, and possibly a little awed by how handsome Grant was, though she’d never say so aloud. There was a chance, also, that she recognized a woman would not give up so lovely a piece of jewelry without great inner turmoil, and so she retrieved a plain gold band from her own jewelry box. She parted with the piece easily and without sentimentality in order to sweeten the deal for Ward, and to perhaps offer consolation to Jemma. 

“I know it’s not your grandmother’s ring.” He said, still holding her hand. He let his thumb trace over the band once, twice. “I’m sorry you had to trade it.”

  Jemma shook her head, willing away emotion and letting (forcing?) a smile across her face. “It’s what we needed to do.” 

The storeowner rounded the corner just then. “Ah, found you!” He said to Grant and tipped his hat to Jemma. “Shop’s all locked up and my Molly is in the truck already. Shall we?”

Grant took Jemma by the arm. “Let’s go, darling.” he said, and she had to admit hearing him address her so fondly, even if it was fake, gave her a little thrill. She channeled that into a giggle she hoped sound flirtatious, and followed the storeowner to his truck.

* * *

 

They’d arrived in Middletown in the early afternoon. By the time the pair arrived in New York City, it was well into the evening, and they were both famished and fatigued. The storeowner dropped them off not far from Times Square, but they didn’t need to approach the famed center to know it was vastly different from the Times Square of their time. 

“I don’t even know where to go.” Jemma said, sounding panicked for the first time that day. 

Grant put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find some place. I have a plan.” It wasn’t so much of a plan as a rough idea, but he wasn’t about to tell Jemma that and risk upsetting her farther. 

They walked a few streets until they came upon a boarding house that seemed clean and reputable. Grant approached the front desk, greeting the man there confidently. Jemma hung back as she watched him speak with the landlord in conciliatory whispers. He removed the watch from his wrist and slid it across the counter. The landlord, a short man in his mid-fifties who sported a thin mustache and too much hair tonic, inspected the face of the watch closely with a critical eye. She wanted to hiss at Grant, remind him that they couldn’t give away anachronistic tech, but then his hand was extending across the counter, and whatever deal had been made was done. 

They were given a quick tour of the facility by the landlord, who introduced himself as Mr. Bingham. He spoke of the boarding house with all the enthusiasm and pride of a tour guide at Buckingham Palace; he showed them a large dining room where meals would be served buffet-style the next day (they had missed dinner by two hours), the communal bathroom, the recreation room, and the small library before finally showing them to their lodgings.

The room was small, smaller than either of them were anticipating, but no smaller than their bunks on the Bus, and that was a relief. They had enough room for the full-sized bed, their suitcase, a closet to share, and a stand with a mirror and washbasin in the corner. Mr. Bingham handed the key to Grant, then excused himself. 

Grant faced Jemma. He looked sheepish.

“I’m sorry. It’s the best I could do.” 

It was hard to hold on to any of her gripes about the room when Grant had tried so hard. 

“It will do nicely,” Jemma insisted, but pointed to his now bare wrist. “I wish you hadn’t given him your watch though. We talked about technology falling into the wrong hands.”

“I didn’t give it.”

“Oh?”

“No. He agreed to keep the watch as collateral until I can pay cash. Whenever that is. The watch was nice enough, he took it without question.” With a tired sigh, Grant took a seat on the foot of the bed. The old wooden frame groaned under the addition of his weight as he leaned forward, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose in a stressed pinch. “I suppose I’ll have to go look for a job tomorrow.” For the first time that day, he sounded uncertain. It occurred to Jemma then that Ward had born the brunt of coping from the very beginning of this mission-turned-misadventure without a single complaint. Though she’d certainly done her part by giving up the ring, it’d been he who had gotten her to safety, then negotiated everything they needed, from clothing to transportation to a place to stay. 

She took a seat beside him. “I didn’t thank you for keeping me safe. So. Thank you for that, and for everything.” The look on his face was a combination of tired and perplexed, so she waved the rest of her words away dismissively. “You’ve done enough for us today. We’re safe for now. Leave the worries about work for tomorrow.”

“If I can’t find a job…”

“You’ll find something.” she interrupted, placing a hand on his knee. “You’re not the only one who can work, either. Let’s just rest for now.” She looked back toward the mattress. Grant followed her gaze.

“I can sleep on the floor.” he offered. 

Jemma shook her head. “Nonsense. There isn’t room.” There was only two feet clearance on either side of the bed, enough to walk but little else. “Besides, what kind of wife makes her husband sleep on the floor?” If her voice quavered slightly over the word “wife”, neither of them brought attention to it. 

They made use of the communal restroom, took turns with the washbasin, then undressed. First Jemma, who stripped to her bra and slip and got into bed while Grant stood with his back turned; then Grant, who undressed to his underwear and then turned out the light. The bed would be a tight fit for the both of them, but Jemma was adamant that he would not sleep on the floor. Eventually they settled on their sides, lying down to face one another. It gave them more room than other sleeping positions they’d tried, but still Jemma’s knees ending up brushing against Grant’s thighs. 

“Sorry,” she stammered. 

“It’s all right.” he said quickly. “It’s okay.” Though the lights were off and the blinds were drawn, a sliver of moonlight peeked through the slats, casting a thin thread of illumination across them. Through it, Grant could make out the outline of Jemma’s body; one arm curled beneath her head, the other rested beside her face, her fist curling and uncurling ever so slightly in a steady rhythm that betrayed her anxiousness. Their faces were inches apart, close enough that every time he exhaled, the locks of hair near her face were stirred. He was used to towering over her when they stood side by side, but laying next to her somehow made her seem smaller. There was an urge to pull her to him -purely to comfort her, of course- that he briefly struggled to overcome. 

Her hand clenched again. Grant covered it with his own, and the motion stopped. 

“We’re going to be okay, Jemma.” he said. 

He wondered if she wouldn’t believe him. She -probably (definitely) more than he did- knew their odds of rescue, of survival… but the tic was gone as long as her hand was covered by his palm, so there it stayed until she was asleep. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> My knowledge of the layout New York (both the state and the city) is limited; 1940s era New York, even more so. Please forgive any factual errors. Also, what I know about time travel is what I’ve seen in Doctor Who and -you guessed it- Kate and Leopold. Please forgive any (theoretical) time travel errors.


End file.
